So, this is less of a tasting note than a brewing note, I guess. After reading this article (http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/how-to-make-the-best-cold-brew-iced-tea.html), I decided to try it out, and this is the tea I pulled out to try it with (don’t know if it’s the best tea for this method, but it’s what I pulled out _ ). I used a full rounded teaspoon in…. I think about a liter of water? I keep forgetting how big that pitcher is. I’ll need to re-measure it one of these days. I did use a teaball, and looking back at the article, it looks like the author left the tea leaves loose in the water, so we’ll see how this works.
I will update in the morning. :)
7/21/2015 ETA: I realize I never updated this. Sorry, life happened. I got three ~10oz cups of tea out of my pitcher. It was very refreshing, but I must admit, I lost a lot of the flavor of the pu-erh. It was there, but much harder to find than before. Also, I tried cold-brewing a pitcher of my Star Trek Earl Grey (currently my favorite EG), and got similar results – I got more flavor from the Earl Grey (the lavender and bergamot) than I did from the pu-erh, but they were still muted compared to hot-brewed. I did like having the pre-steeped tea in the fridge, because I could still enjoy it, and it was easy to just pour and move on to what I needed to do. I am going to try this with other teas – still need to try it with some lighter teas, I think. And some ithers with strong flavors. I suspect that the cold brewing will work better with…. strong-flavored teas. I don’t want to say artificially-flavored necessarily, but I think the subtle flavor variations naturally occurring in tea from different regions may get dampened to almost nothing by the cold-brewing process, and you might as well be brewing Lipton (not that there’s anything wrong with that _). It the article, it mentions that cold-brewing can shorten the distance between a decent-quality and a great quality tea, and after the two I tried (both extremely good quality, as far as I can tell), I think that might be the case, since the cold seems to wash out the variation.
Anyway, I’ll continue to experiment, and try to remember to report my results here.
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There are a few members that cold brew shou pu’erh to get the last bit of flavour from the leaves and they seem to really like it. I haven’t tried myself, but really should to get the most out of the leaves. Hope it works it out for you :)
Thanks! I need to start multi-steeping my leaves, too. If cold-brewing works well, I think that’s will make it easier for me, since I can just keep it in the fridge, and since I tend to drink my highest caffeine teas in the morning if I can. Here’s hoping I get my caffeine tolerance rebuilt so I can enjoy any tea I want, anytime. :)
There are a few members that cold brew shou pu’erh to get the last bit of flavour from the leaves and they seem to really like it. I haven’t tried myself, but really should to get the most out of the leaves. Hope it works it out for you :)
Thanks! I need to start multi-steeping my leaves, too. If cold-brewing works well, I think that’s will make it easier for me, since I can just keep it in the fridge, and since I tend to drink my highest caffeine teas in the morning if I can. Here’s hoping I get my caffeine tolerance rebuilt so I can enjoy any tea I want, anytime. :)